The Wise Universe

When I refer to a “Wise Universe” I mean there is an intelligence that underlies the whole shebang.

Our Modern Conditioning

In our modern world, we are trained to see the universe has dumb matter floating in space. That is our modern conditioning, and for anyone to believe anything different, well, they must either reject science and reason or be imbibing some pretty good drugs.

But science only deals with the material reality because that’s all that fits within the parameters of its measurements. It’s like the fisherman who fishes with a one-inch mesh net, and then concludes there are no fish in the sea smaller than one inch.

Science is like that. They have no tools “to catch” something like intelligence, consciousness, or mind. Since they can’t put any of it under a microscope or see it with a telescope, they conclude it doesn’t exist. Not very scientific if you ask me.

So, we are stuck with a materialistic worldview that sees the universe as not only without intelligence, but also without meaning and purpose. That’s a tough worldview to work with.

The Modern World Has Its Benefits

However, we must give this worldview its due. It has increased our knowledge of this universe and its evolution, and improved the lives of many with its advances in technology and medicine. Many people live much better lives due to the advances made possible by the modern worldview. So we do want to hang on to some of its achievements, but we also need to move on because it is ill equipped to handle the myriad of problems it is now creating.

As the Integral philosopher, Ken Wilber says, we must include and transcend, meaning we want to keep the best parts of the modern worldview, but transcend its worst parts.

So, why do I say the Universe is wise. I wrote a book, entitled The Magical Universe: Answering the Call of Climate Change for Personal and Global Transformation. In it, I used the Big Bang universe story to make the argument that the universe is infused with intelligence.

Evidence the Universe is Wise

Since the modern worldview thinks the universe is made up of dumb matter floating in space, I decided to show that wasn’t the case. Can I prove it with one hundred percent certainty? No. But in my universe story, I pointed out “miracles” that occurred in the universe story. This is particularly evident in the evolution of matter in the early universe.

One would think if the universe was made up of dumb matter, it couldn’t do much other than float mindlessly in space, so then where did all this development come from?

In the early universe some miraculous events happened. For example, we had these different types of subatomic particles called quarks floating in a quantum vacuum. At a certain point they combined to form larger subatomic particles, the protons and neutrons. It’s a funny thing for dumb matter to do, combine in precise ways to create a whole new entity. But this wasn’t a one-off event either. It’s what the universe does and continues to do as I’ll briefly show.

Those neutrons and protons came together in the right conditions to form the first nucleus. Eventually this nucleus grabbed a passing electron and created the first atom, and these atoms then combined, not only to create the first molecules, but also the first stars. It was inside the belly of these stars that the vast majority of the elements that make up our sun, the earth and ourselves were formed. Pretty heady work for dumb matter.

I could go on to explain how these molecules ending up creating cells, the first living organisms. How did that happen? How did life emerge from dumb matter? No one knows. The smartest scientists, working on this day and night, can’t figure it out. It’s magic. It’s the wisdom of the universe.

And then, these cells began to magically connect with each other, creating multi-cellular organisms. These developed all the way up to we humans with our very complex brain and nervous systems.

Everything I just went through is quite an accomplishment for a mindless universe.

If the Universe is so Wise, Why So Many Problems?

Now, some people may look at our world today and ask, if the universe is so wise, why doesn’t it step in and give us a little of its wisdom because we could sure use it. This is like the argument people use for disproving the existence of God. They ask, what kind of a loving God would allow all this violence, killing, bloodshed and tragedy to occur? They conclude, that if there is such a God, it’s certainly not one they would ever worship.

When we talk about a wise universe, we are not talking about a God existing outside his creation. That is the old-time religion, and it doesn’t work in our modern world anymore.

Instead what I and others propose is that the creative process of the universe itself embodies this wisdom. It is inherent in it. It was there from the beginning and is embedded in its evolutionary process. It is groping its way forward. It has an intention to develop and evolve and it is using the evolutionary process I described above, to do this. For more details, please read my short book I referred to earlier.

Humans: The Universe’s Adolescents

Now with the creation of humans, the universe has entered a whole new territory. Before humans, everything pretty much followed the universe’s evolutionary urge

But with humans, the universe has created an entity that has self-consciousness and a free will. It can listen and follow the urge of the universe or its own egoic desires. The universe cannot control that, yet it has to let this creature go, because if the human can figure this thing out, it will become the biggest leap forward the universe has ever taken. It’s a gargantuan experiment.

But humans on their own, without the intelligence of the universe to guide them is a big risk, as we can see by just looking at the state of our world today. We are on the verge of an act so idiotic, it makes your head spin, and that is causing our own extinction.

So we are the grand experiment of the universe. It can’t keep us bottled up like all the other creatures. It has to let us go. The universe is like the parents of teens or young adults who have reached that age where it is time to let them go so they can make their way in the world. We have to let them venture out and make their own decisions and mistakes. We just have to hope they mature and develop into independent adults who can make responsible decisions. If they can then our relationship with them changes from being a parent-child relationship to being an adult-adult relationship.

Can We Adolescents Grow Up?

We are the universe’s adolescents that have been set free to see if we can handle the responsibility. Will we muck it all up, or can we, before it is too late, mature and become adults, making responsible decisions. If we can, then we develop a mature, co-creative relationship with the universe. We realize the universe did not create this mess we are in, so it cannot solve it alone, the way it did with its earlier crises.

Since we are solely responsible for our current problems, we have to solve them. Fortunately, the universe like a good parent is there to impart its wisdom. However, it won’t just offer it up, we have to ask for it, and to do that, we have to go deep inside to receive it.

Have you ever had a big problem in your life and spent time meditating and thinking about it? Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, probably when you are doing something totally unrelated to the problem at hand, a solution pops up in your mind, and you know it’s exactly the right one. That is the wisdom of the universe speaking to you

When we do this enough, we realize there is no separation between the universe and our ourselves. We are the universe expressing itself in the form of a human, and as such we have a purpose and a destiny to fulfill. The universe’s wisdom is our wisdom and it is there to guide us, if we have the wherewithal to quiet down our chattering minds and listen.

To learn more about the magic of the universe: Click this link: The Magical Universe. 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay